python3: 'where' keyword

Steve Holden steve at holdenweb.com
Sun Jan 9 10:44:20 EST 2005


Alex Martelli wrote:

> AdSR <adsr at poczta.onet.pl> wrote:
> 
> 
>>I don't know haskell, but it looks SQL-ish to me (only by loose 
> 
> 
> Indeed, the fact that many MANY more people are familiar with SQL than
> with Haskell may be the strongest practical objection to this choice of
> syntax sugar; the WHERE clause in an SQL SELECT has such wildly
> different semantics from Haskell's "where" that it might engender huge
> amounts of confusion.  I.e., reasoning by analogy with SQL only, one
> might reasonably expect that minor syntax variations on:
> 
>     print a, b where a = b
> 
> could mean roughly the same as "if a==b: print a, b", rather than
> roughly the same as:
> 
>     a = b
>     print a, b
> 
> I wonder if 'with', which GvR is already on record as wanting to
> introduce in 3.0, might not be overloaded instead.
> 
IIRC the proposed meaning seems to be most closely related (in my own 
experience, annyway) to the use of "where" in BCPL (heavens, *that* was 
a long time ago). I never found that entirely natural either.

regards
  Steve
-- 
Steve Holden               http://www.holdenweb.com/
Python Web Programming  http://pydish.holdenweb.com/
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